In a word: Idioms! They’re all a bunch of idioms!

Lewiston wordmeister Jim Witherell explores our language's many word phrases that make no sense unless you know what they mean, catch my drift?

In a word: Joan Didion: ‘The arrangement of words matter’

'To shift the structure of a sentence alters the meaning of that sentence as definitely and inflexibly as the position of a camera alters the meaning of the object photographed,' the well-known writer once said.

In a word: Getting possessive about US place names

In a word: Jim and Claus take on the Queen’s English

In a word: Are you pickin’ up what I’m lying down?

In a word: Popular word game had hardscrabble start

In a Word: Brighten your day with some spritely wordplay

We offer you parts of the English language that bring us joy to give you a brief reprieve from the news cycle.

In a word: Newspapers’ role in the popularity of ‘word-cross’ puzzles

In a word: Teddy Roosevelt, the SSB and how words are spelt

In a word: Early eforts to chanje the languaj make me ake